Jamie Davidoff

The Economist slams DRM (Download Squad)

Apr 30th 2007 9:11PM I’ve read dozens of articles on DRM in traditional print media, on tech websites and of course comments on various forums. This is only the second time I’ve seen mention the point that consumers are forced to rebuy the same content over and over again every time a platform becomes technologically obsolete.

To me this is the crux of the flaw in the entertainment industries strategy. They defend their right to restrict customers use of their product with DRM by saying that it is the intellectual content (i.e., movie or music etc. ) that they are selling, not platform on which it is provided. Well if you turn that argument around on them, then we should not have to pay full price when we buy a DVD to replace when replacing a scratched or damaged DVD. The cost of the replacement media is all we should have to pay for a new DVD.

As far as music goes if you purchased a vinyl record album, then purchased the same tile in the 8-Track format, and then the cassette format, and then again the CD; the industry has collected full price for the same content four times. I never much liked this cliché but basically they want to have their cake and eat it too.